Writing’s on the wall for the Brexit bongs

Prime Minister orders digital countdown projected on to No10 after ‘scandal’ over Big Ben

BORIS JOHNSON is to have a clock projected on to the walls of 10 Downing Street to count down to Brexit after his attempts to get Big Ben to bong failed.

The Prime Minister will also deliver an address to the nation on television, hold a Cabinet in the north of England and ensure Parliament Square will be lined with Union flags to mark leaving the European Union on Jan 31.

No10 also confirmed that the longplanned 50p Brexit coin will enter circulation, stamped with the Brexit date and the message: “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.”

Downing Street said the light display will include “a clock counting down to 11pm projected on to the black bricks of Downing Street. Buildings around Whitehall will also be lit up”.

The Daily Telegraph can also disclose that the £500,000 cost of allowing Big Ben to bong on Brexit night would be 35 times more than the bill for New Year’s Eve. Mark Francois, the Tory MP, demanded an inquiry, while Sir Iain

Duncan Smith said the figure had been “conjured up deliberately to stop any discussion about Big Ben sounding”.

The Commission rejected a request to allow the bell to chime last Monday, despite 60 Tory MPS demanding it in a letter to last week’s Sunday Telegraph, saying it would cost £500,000. This covered the cost of reinstating a floor, as well as reinstalling the equipment needed to make the bell sound. But that figure was called into question when Sir Paul Beresford, a senior Tory member of the Commission, told MPS the bell cost just £14,200 to sound on other occasions such as Remembrance Sunday and New Year’s Eve.

Mr Francois, who organised crowdfunding that raised £220,000 towards the cost of paying for Big Ben to sound, said: “What was becoming an embarrassment is now evolving into a scandal. I have always suspected the costs were inflated but I never dreamt it was 35 fold. I will be writing to the head of the National Audit Office on Monday to formally ask them to investigate the entire Elizabeth Tower project.” Sir Iain, the former Conservative leader, said: “If it sounded at New Year’s Eve and on Nov 11 then it should sound for this because this is a big, big moment.”

Separately, it can be disclosed that contractors working on the refurbishment of the Elizabeth Tower told MPS of a huge cost increase last Monday.

MPS were told the cost was on course to hit £80million, nearly three times the original £29million budget signed off in 2016. The increase is understood to have meant MPS felt they could not sanction the bongs. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, is understood to have asked the contractors to reconsider the figure. A House of Commons spokesman said: “At this stage no additional budget has been considered by the Commons or Lords Commissions.”

A spokesman for the Commons also said it was sticking with its estimate of the cost of sounding the bell for Brexit, “based on the fixed cost of installing, testing, operating and dismantling the temporary mechanism used to sound the bell during the works, plus an allowance for each week that work on the project is delayed”.

The projected clock is likely to be digital and in red white and blue, though aides are studying other options.

£14,200

Cost of sounding Big Ben on Remembrance Sunday and on New Year’s Eve. For Jan 31, the price is 35 times dearer, at £500,000